Suppose you are in the newly added quarter of Cairo—say at the French post-office—and wish to visit the bazaars. You pass along a broad and macadamized street, with French shops on one side and a row of unfinished buildings on the other, that have a Parisian appearance. With two or three turnings in streets of this sort, you arrive at the Mooskee, a broad street—broad for the Orient—leading into the native portion of Cairo.
The Mooskee was once a sort of narrow lane, but was widened by one of the former Pashas, not without opposition on the part of the Moslems. Here the rows of foreign shops continue; they are French, Greek, Italian, English, and German, arranged without any regard to nationalities. At first, they are all foreign; as you advance, you see here and there a shop, attended by a native; and as you go on and on, the natives increase in numbers, and the foreigners decrease. At first the shops have windows and doors, and counters, like those in London or Paris, but as you go on, you find here and there one on the plan of the Orient, the front entirely open, and the goods displayed from within to a customer standing in the street.
Here is a niche where was once a window; it has been walled up, and the stones which close it are about eighteen inches inside the line.
This space would be of no use in the West, but here in the East it has been utilized, and we find a couple of cobblers squatted there, with their benches of tools in front of them. Very small are these benches, and as for the tools, they are not numerous. Further on we see open-fronted shops, tended by foreigners, and close-fronted shops tended by natives; then we come to a section where all the shops are open, and natives are more and more numerous; finally, by turning,—we may go to the right or left, as we choose,—under the shadow of a decaying mosque, we enter the bazaars, and the habits and costumes of the Orientais rise around us.
In many parts of the Mooskee there is a roof thrown quite across the street, a roof consisting mainly of timbers, with openings through which the light can stream and the rain can fall. Some of the Oriental cities have the streets covered, and there are openings here and there, to admit the light. Cairo is not covered, but her streets are so narrow, and the house-tops project so far, that in many places the streets are rather sombre, even at mid-day. Everywhere you see little balconies and projecting windows, the latter covered with wooden grills or lattices, through which women can see without being seen; however brightly the lights of the harem may burn within, they cannot be observed from without. The merchants in the shops find this dimness to their advantage, as it gives to some of their wares the appearance of a fineness which they do not possess.
Turning to the left out of the Mooskee, we entered the bazaar of Khan-Haleel, so named after a Khan, which was built about’ six hundred years ago, and is still standing without much alteration.